


Therm and the Real Girl

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: I Don't Even Know, Once I figure out what the fuck this is, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-30 20:07:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20102890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The tale you are about to read is both wondrous and strange, and I would not be surprised if when you read it, you are as skeptical as I was when I first heard it. But whether you believe the story or not isn’t important. What is important is that you are reading it, and when you are done, you may judge for yourself how much of it is true.





	Therm and the Real Girl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Void_Punk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Void_Punk/gifts), [chaos_monkey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaos_monkey/gifts), [Revakah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revakah/gifts).

The tale you are about to read is both wondrous and strange, and I would not be surprised if when you read it, you are as skeptical as I was when I first heard it. But whether you believe the story or not isn’t important. What  _ is  _ important is that you are reading it, and when you are done, you may judge for yourself how much of it is true.

It was another cold, wet morning in Dublin and Gráinne O’Flanagan was running late. She had stayed up far too late playing video games the night before, and when her alarm went off at half-past five, she turned it off instead of hitting the snooze button. This was unwise, as she had a tendency to fall back asleep if her alarm did not continuously beep in a supremely annoying fashion. It was only after Gráinne’s cat, a large orange tabby named Benny, meowed repeatedly in her face and began nipping her nose that she finally became fully conscious.

“Fuck off, you twat,” she muttered, reaching up to push the big cat’s head away. Then she picked up her phone and gazed blearily at the screen. 6:48. 

“Fuck,” she groaned, scrambling out of bed, then promptly tripped over Benny and fell face first onto the floor.

Chaos ensued for the next ten minutes, during which Gráinne swore colorfully and loudly, then picked herself up from the floor, wincing in pain. After making sure she hadn’t broken any bones or squashed Benny— she hadn’t— Gráinne rushed about her tiny flat, trying to get ready for work in less than half the time it normally took. By the time she finally dashed out the door, it was nearly 7:35, and the 7:38 train was just pulling away from the platform as she reached it. Gráinne swore yet again, cursing the universe for seeming to conspire against her, and sat down to wait for the next train.

All of this may seem like mere coincidence to you, and maybe it was. But many of the strange and wondrous things that happen in our universe (and other universes) happen because someone was in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. This, I believe, is what happened to Gráinne.

Gráinne worked in the heart of downtown Dublin, in the fraud division of a large corporation. The name of the corporation isn’t important. What  _ is  _ important is the ground beneath the corporation’s headquarters used to be the site of an ancient Celtic temple. Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, the Celts performed their sacred rituals within the temple’s wooden walls, calling upon the spirits of the otherworld to protect them from harm. Nothing of the temple still remains, save for a small stone altar where the Celts used to place offerings to the otherworld— offerings that, among other things, included the severed heads of their enemies.

This will make more sense later on.

Gráinne arrived at work at 8:11, eleven minutes after she was supposed to clock in. Her manager, an ugly, vindictive little man named Ghettz, was waiting for her.

“That’s the second time this week, Gráinne,” he snapped as she came barreling through the row of cubicles. “If you’re late again, I’ll have to write you up.”

“Sorry, Mr. Ghettz,” Gráinne said, arranging her face in what she hoped was an apologetic expression. “Won’t happen again.”

“It had better not,” Ghettz snapped. “And you’ll be staying an extra ten minutes later today to make up the difference.”

“Yes, sir,” Gráinne said, trying not to think about how much she would love to crack that sweaty bald head open like an egg.

The fraud division was located in the basement of the building, because no one likes to be reminded that fraud exists in contemporary society. Gráinne’s desk was in the corner furthest from the front door, sandwiched between a row of filing cabinets and the copy machine.

Which, as it happens, is exactly 3.14 meters above the place where the ancient Celtic stone altar is buried.

Gráinne sat down at her desk and began reviewing the list of tasks for today. Most of her job involved phoning people and asking a series of questions to determine whether they had been victims of fraud. It was a rather dull job, but it paid well.

She worked diligently until half-past ten, at which time the morning tea break commenced. Gráinne hated tea break because the conversations with her coworkers usually consisted of topics she had no interest in— skiing, cricket scores, and small children, to name a few. But tea break was a sacred ritual in Irish work culture, and skipping it was akin to declaring that you were the worst sort of person in the world, right up there with people who refer to themselves as “weekend warriors” or put too much balsamic vinegar on their salads.

If only there was someone else in the office who shared her love of video games, Gráinne thought, it might make being at work slightly more interesting. But the entire division consisted of middle-aged men and women, none of whom had the slightest idea what terms like RPG or FPS or SWTOR stood for. The one time she’d mentioned RPG to a coworker, the woman had blinked and asked if that was a special type of printer cartridge.

Once tea break was over and done with, Gráinne returned to work. When half-past twelve struck, she got up, stretched, and went upstairs to purchase something from the corporate cafeteria. Going out to restaurants for lunch was generally frowned upon, as it reduced productivity and boosted office morale, two things which corporations tend to discourage.

She bought a pathetic egg salad sandwich that was barely enough to keep a monkey alive, and ate it at her desk, trying not to let the fluorescent lighting sap her spirits. Just a few more hours and then she would be home, lost in the world of SWTOR and playing her favorite character, Sith Lord Mitth’ermo’safis, affectionately referred to as Thermos or Therm. Therm was a blue-skinned Chiss alien with perfectly sculpted muscles, an enormously inflated ego, and an utterly ruthless way of getting things done. He had originally started out as a joke between her and a few gaming friends, but over the past few months Gráinne had gotten quite attached to the promiscuous, swaggering Force wielder. She’d even bought the expansion pack in order to access the full range of armor and outfits, although to be honest, Therm spent more time out of his clothing than in it. The man was extremely well-endowed, and Gráinne thought it only fair that the rest of the characters in the game be allowed to admire his physique whenever possible. 

Half-past three went by. Then half-past four. By that time, all of Gráinne’s coworkers had left for the day. The only person left was Ghettz, who was lurking near her cubicle, obviously making sure she stayed the extra ten minutes. Gráinne clenched her teeth, resisting the urge to throw the empty sandwich box at her boss’s stupid bald head, and kept on working.

It was at this moment that the first of the many strange and wondrous things began to occur.

There was a low rumbling that Gráinne first thought was thunder. Then she realized that the sound of thunder couldn’t possibly reach all the way down here. The rumbling grew louder and louder, until the very room itself seemed to shake. The keys in the filing cabinets rattled, and a pen rolled off Gráinne’s desk and hit the floor next to her foot.

“Gráinne,” Ghettz said, his voice going a bit quavery, “did you—”

There was a burst of blinding white light and the entire room went dark. Gráinne sucked in her breath, expecting the emergency lights to come on. They didn’t. Instead, a sharp cracking sound split the air, making them both jump.

“What the  _ fuck _ ?” Ghettz shouted, leaping backwards as an enormous fissure began forming in the floor.

Gráinne gasped and instinctively rolled her chair back, tucking her feet up out of harm’s way. Clouds of white smoke hissed out of the yawning chasm in the floor, and a musty smell hit her nostrils. What the fuck  _ was  _ happening? Was it an earthquake? Had a bomb gone off? Did the hundred-year-old septic system suddenly explode?

As it turned out, it was none of these things. As the rumbling and hissing faded away, a new sound began. It was a voice— a deep, commanding, disdainful voice. A voice Gráinne never expected to hear in a million years.

“Not again,” the voice said irritably. “Quinn, I  _ told  _ you dropping out of hyperspace early was a stupid idea. Now we’ve gone and landed ourselves in Force knows where. I swear when I find you, I’m going to choke you so hard you’ll black out.”

It couldn’t be. It  _ couldn’t  _ be. But the voice was unmistakable. She’d heard it often enough through her noise-cancelling headphones.

It was the voice of the one and only Sith Lord Mitth’ermo’safis.


End file.
